Day: April 16, 2024

Charlie and I’ve come to appreciate soccer more since we watched Ted Lasso. Of course, Spain is soccer-crazy. And, of course, they don’t call it soccer, they call it fútbol.

When we got to our hotel yesterday we noticed red and white striped flags along the front (photo above). When we checked in we asked about what they were for. The young woman took us over to see a newspaper. The local soccer team (Bilbao) had just won the Spanish King’s Cup (Copa del Rey) the Spanish championship match. Later we noticed the flags all over town and saw this in the bar where we had breakfast this morning.

Today we had our first tortilla of this trip. It’s what we had for breakfast in a bar between Portugalete and La Arena. A Spanish tortilla is not like a US/Mexico/New Mexico tortilla. A Spanish tortilla is sometimes described as an omelette. It’s made from eggs and potatoes and onions. A bit firmer/thicker than an omelette. The one we had this morning also had ham and cheese. Quite yummy with the good bread you get here. Holly, I know how much you liked these when you did the Camino. Thought of you.

It swings side to side like a battering ram.

This was in one short tunnel.

Last night in Portugalete we splurged on a four-star hotel (still less than $100). Would you say the towel is big enough?

It was heavy, too. I couldn’t bring myself to use another of these (waste all those resources to wash and dry it) so I just dried with Charlie’s towel.

Rainy days: 1
Altus rain ponchos spotted: 1 (other than ours)
Moving sidewalks ascended in the rain: 5 (two were out of order) (they were a little slippery, maybe it’s better if you don’t take strollers on them)
Lots of hills: yes, of course
Distance walking above or beside freeways: 2 miles
Distance walked on asphalt: 7.5 miles (out of 7.5 miles)
Times my GPS track follower signaled that I was off the track: at least 5
Times we revisited the bar we liked in 2018: 2

It rained off and on the whole walk. But, being from NM, we have a strong affection for rain so it was fine.

Leaving Portugalete we crossed a huge freeway intersection. We were on pathways above it. It seemed to go on forever.

On the Camino forum people complain a lot about how much road walking there is on the Norte. This is true but we have another viewpoint. When you are walking on asphalt you don’t have to watch your feet every second to avoid falling on the uneven rocks so it is much more relaxing. Actually only a few blocks was actual road, the rest was a bike and walking trail so you didn’t have to worry about cars.

We use an app called Wikiloc which will follow a track you upload. When you get off track by more than 10-20 yards it emits a loud squawk. Handy. But the Camino trail has changed in many small ways since our GPS track was recorded. So we just followed the yellow arrows and had no problem.

We are in that bar right now, drinking decafs and blogging.

We are spending the night in a tiny town named La Arena. The word arena means sand in Spanish and, no surprise, there is a large sandy beach here that is bigger than the non-beach part of the town.

We had picked out a place for lunch (the only place in town that offered more than tapas) and turned out to be just downstairs from our little apartment (the only place we could find to stay in town). They had a great menu del día.